Light (and tractors)

Light returns [to tractors (in Wales)]:

Solstice and midwinter observances are varied, but seem always to involve light!

SandraDodd.com/light
photos by Janine Davies

Light show

Alex Polikowsky wrote, years ago:

We are all for fun stuff. We get to go to places with our homeschooling friends like theme parks and museums and have it all to ourselves. We get to play all day because for unschoolers playing and learning go hand in hand.

My kids are happy. They have fun. They learn everyday.

We have time to have many animals the kids want.

We have time to play games as a family.

We have time to run in the yard and explore places together. We have time to have fun.

Our lives are not separated between school life and home life. Most things we do, we do it because we like it and because we have fun doing them.

—Alex Polikowsky
(source / interview, 2009)

Alex's children are both at the University of Minnesota, studying engineering, so she had time to visit me and explore and play games. We had fun. She took the photo above on her way home.

Meanwhile, some of our other unschooling friends saw the northern lights, too, and shared images: Colleen Prieto, New Hampshire

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Gail Higgins, North Carolina

I slept through all of that, and failed to leave a post; sorry!

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More by Alex Polikowsky
top photo by Alex Polikowsky, from a plane, October 10, 2024—
wingtip light and slight reflection from the window

The more the easier

SandraDodd:

My "make the better choice" tool has helped me move from "acceptable" to "better" and then MORE better.  🙂

JennyC:

It's nice to catch yourself in the moment and do better. The more you do it, the easier it is to do it.

SandraDodd.com/service
photo by Sandra Dodd

Being merry and light

If a single, childless person wants to spend a LOT of energy being negative about school, cataloging school's ills, revealing and reviewing school damage, then that's a hobby.

If the parent of unschooled children wants to do that, I think the energy and emotion could be better and more positively spent being merry and light with children who are not in school.

No one can have everything. You can't store up and identify with cynicism, pessimism and self-righteous ire and still pour out joy and happiness to your family.


moving away from negativity about school
photo by Nicole Kenyon

Different in the dark

Things look different in the dark. It's understandable for a kid to be afraid of the dark. A little explore might be fun, though, sometimes, with flashlights, or with a camera.

SandraDodd.com/dark
photo by Sandra Dodd

Positive and beautiful

Alex Polikowsky wrote:

Fear of electromagnetic waves? What if I tell you they are everywhere and that even earth has it?? (hey I am a huge Aurora Borealis aficionado!!)

Living with all this fear is not fun and it is anxiety inducing. Anxiety is a terrible state for you or your child to live in. Learning thrives when there is peace and safety.

Feeling unsafe because your library has wifi and making life about the dangers around is a soul sucking way to live for your children and for yourself.

Surround yourself with all that is positive and beautiful including amazing wifi!

—Alex Polikowsky

SandraDodd.com/radiation
photo by my neighbor, Linda G., visiting Iceland

Concerned and attentive

Just as being kinder and gentler with a child makes one a kinder, gentler parent, being more attentive and concerned about a spouse or partner makes that person, in turn, more attentive and concerned.

It doesn't happen all at once, and you can't send them the bill. You can't count or measure it. It has to be selfless and generous. Your kindness needs to be given because it makes you kinder, not because you want any further reward.


From The Big Book of Unschooling, page 270 (page 311, in 2nd edition)

Also see: SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Marin Holmes

It's ALL temporary

Below is part of a response by Robyn Coburn to a doubtful mom saying if ALL her kids wanted to do ALL day EVERY day was..., that she would have a problem. After creating some other all-day-interest examples, Robyn wrote:

The fact is that even if it is ALL they want to do for ALL day EVERY day, it will still be temporary; EVERY day would still not last forever. It would be a temporary need being fulfilled. Discovering and facilitating the children's passions is another tentpole of Unschooling practice. A child discovering something that they *want* every day is cause for celebration.

The only way to know if your children genuinely, truly want to do the other activities is if they have the option to choose not to do them. They can only choose to switch it off when they have the option to leave it on.

—Robyn Coburn

SandraDodd.com/choicerobyn
photo by Chris Chambliss

Simple but gigantic

One of the best first steps a family can take toward moving a giant step toward being more positive is to note and back off about anyone or anything they've called "dumb" or "stupid."

It's simple but gigantic.

If things (music, ideas, jokes) are allowed the dignity of being potentially accepted as perhaps good in someone's estimation, lights come on all over that world.

Sandra, on Always Learning, in 2008
photo by Holly Dodd

Tender protection

Unschooling isn't anarchy. Being kind to a baby isn't anarchy; it's tender protection of one's young. Being sweet with a toddler isn't anarchy; it's opening up the world to a human being seeing it with new eyes.

SandraDodd.com/anarchy
photo by Cátia Maciel

Plain old or all dressed up

Sometimes a table might be formally set for a special meal, or decked out with a birthday cake, and other times it has a week's worth of mail and a forgotten art project.

People will doll up with formal clothes and the best of hair and make-up, or be set head-to-toe for a sport, performance, or a cosplay event.

A house, or neighborhood, might be decorated for a festival, and a week later have too much sunshine, and trash blowing down the street.

This happens with learning, with relationships, and in families, too. A special movie night isn't the same as whatever's on and helping fold the laundry so there's space on the couch. What looks like a quiet, boring afternoon might have a lot of learning under the surface.

A Typical Unschooling Day Described two ways
photo by Janine Davies

Trees and toy trains

'Tis the season for miniatures and lights, of nostalgia and sharing.

Be warm, and help light up the world around you.

Every little bit helps.

Sun, or moon, or fire
photo by Shawn Smythe Haunschild

Dreams

Peaceful sleep and sweet dreams can come from gentle parenting.

SandraDodd.com/peace
photo by Holly Dodd, of Albuquerque, from a high point in a neighboring town

International this'n'that

That ornament is on my Christmas tree, in Albuquerque. It's not new this year, but was mailed to me from Julie, in England. She got it at Tesco; I like Tesco. She sent tea, too.

Santa is based on a Saint who lived in Asia Minor, and in this felt model of the Christmas character St. Nicholas evolved into, he's riding a llama. Llamas are from the Andes mountains in South America. The ornament itself might have been made in India, or in Nepal. There are people reading this in South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. We have subscribers on six continents. Some shop at Tesco; some might have llamas; some are celebrating Christmas.

Best wishes to all readers of Just Add Light and Stir. This is post #4,000.

Connections
photo by Sandra Dodd

Lamplight and color

I like facebook because I can see photos of my grandkids, of more distant relatives, of friends who live near and far, some of whom I've met in person and others I've known for twenty years or more without being in the same physical place.

This week, Karen James (probably with the help of her family) painted a couple of these walls different colors. I know this because she shared it on facebook.

Before the new colors came, though, I had snagged an image of lamps, thinking of the interactions of those various lights on Karen's art projects, her snacks, views of her husband and son, and her cat. I thought of how each light had a purpose, and a history.

Now, to all of that, add the thought of new colors. What is commonplace this year—seeing others' homes at a distance in color, grandparents seeing grandchildren asleep in their own beds without leaving our own—is new, on Earth. Appreciation and wonder are appropriate reactions to these marvels. Try not to take wonders for granted.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photos by Karen James

Subscriptions, and gratitude

Dear subscribers:

Thank you for your patience while Vlad is building a mailing program around us. The new format is beautiful and full of links to good things. I'm very grateful to Mr. Gurdiga for his clever and very generous help.

Some days, some of us got doubles, or posts repeated. I'm sorry for the confusion, but glad for the abundance!

I had wanted to quote part of something I wrote about abundance, but found that
1) the whole thing was required for it to make sense,
2) I had posted it before, in 2013, and
3) the original post had comments and links to two things new that day, about abundance and gratitude.

Please enjoy: Gratitude and Abundance

photo by Sandra Dodd

Only a child?

"Respect" is not a light thing. It's not easy to respect your child, when it's new to you. There will be people encouraging you to see your child as "just a kid," and "only a child." Think of adults you respect, and think of them as ten years old, four years old, two, newborn. They were those people from birth. There was a newborn Mohandas Gandhi; a four-year-old Abraham Lincoln; an eight-year-old Oprah Winfrey; a twelve-year-old Winston Churchill.

SandraDodd.com/respect
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Last-minute gifts

Something people need for Christmas is patience, sweetness and a little more attention than you think you have time for. Slow down just enough to look more closely at each person in your house, or in your video feed, or who sent you a card or note. If you can't give them more of yourself directly, think kindly of them. Maybe do something helpful for someone else, in their honor. Many people are not where they would like to be this week, and those who see each other might not hug and kiss. If you can make things better and not worse, that is a profound gift.

Give patience for Christmas.
photo by Sandra Dodd, from last year

Intangible souvenirs

If you have any shaming or controlling voices in your head, think of how they got there, and how you might avoid becoming one in someone else's head.

Say things your child, partner, friend or neighbor will remember warmly.

Voices in your head
photo by Kelly Drewery
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Spooky midway

I think the cure for spooky carnivals, fairgrounds, midways and amusement parks is to watch more Scooby-Doo.

The exception to this would be if one was never afraid of spooky abandoned amusement parks until Scooby-Doo instilled some fear.

As slightly-spooky, mostly-silly kid adventure, though, Scooby-Doo will bring up lots of connections, and probably make kids laugh.

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Scooby-Doo has been mentioned so many times in unschooling discussions that I have a directory page for it: SandraDodd.scoobydoo
photo by Amy Milstein